Taylor Swift Penned An Open Letter To Apple Music

“We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.”

June 21, 2015
Taylor Swift Penned An Open Letter To Apple Music Mike Coppola / Getty

In an open letter published to her Tumblr on Sunday morning, Taylor Swift explained her reasons for keeping her album 1989 off of Apple's new streaming service Apple Music. She states that while she supports Apple's goal of paid streaming, and thinks "this could be the platform that gets it right," she doesn't support the three-month trial period during which the company will not be paying out royalties to any of the writers, producers, or artists that get their music streamed.

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Apple VP of iTunes Content Robert Kondrk confirmed in an interview with Re/code that music owners will receive 71.5% of Apple Music's subscription revenue, a number that is a few percentage points higher than the industry standard in order to make up for this three-month trial period. However, Swift believes that Apple should pay content creators regardless. "We know that this incredible company has the money to pay artists, writers and producers for the 3 month trial period… even if it is free for the fans trying it out."

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Taylor Swift Penned An Open Letter To Apple Music